A study of the oppinions of Brasov county SME employees regarding the use of business games

A scientific research was carried out using a 17 - question form, which was filled out by 335 businesses from Brasov County, through which we wanted to determine the awareness degree in regard to some information system notions. To analyse the data the SPSS software was used. The research reached the conclusion that the employees of businesses from Brasov County know very little about information systems

Study of the combined effects of oxidation and adsorption process in removing MTBE from wastewater

Treatment of Methyl Tert-Butyl Ether (MTBE) from wastewater supplies presents specific challenges due to the physicochemical properties of MTBE which depend strongly on its hydrophilic nature, and translate into a high solubility in water. MTBE has very low Henry‘s constant and very low affinity for common adsorbents. An investigation was carried out for the treatability of metyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE) in synthetic wastewater. In this research, experimental rig and bench-scale studies using granular activated carbon (GAC) and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) were conducted to observe the treatability of MTBE in synthetic wastewater. An experimental rig was built up that consist of three conjugated system. Subsequently, MTBE was amended to the H2O2 and air flow, followed by adsorption treatment with GAC. Generally, the major finding suggests that the longer cycle pulsation time (3 minutes open valve + 5 seconds closed valve) with air flow rate at 6 L/min over the synthetic wastewater caused a greater removal of MTBE. The result of this study can help to provide specific guidance into process parameter selection for treating MTBE in wastewaters. The optimum operating conditions are very important for treating the wastewater effectively in a larger scale

Indoor Air Quality – a Key Element of the Energy Performance of the Buildings

AbstractThe inadequate thermal performance of existing buildings and ventilation strategies in buildings are currently the biggest challenges for the housing sector in Central and Eastern Europe in the context of addressing the sustainability and health of the built environment. Lack of adequate ventilation of indoor spaces causes poor air quality and a higher incidence of sick building syndrome (SBS), which is manifested by affecting the comfort and wellbeing in the living space. Ensuring high energy performance buildings and indoor air quality is efficiently approached by limiting emissions from sources or by partial neutralization of the pollutants, an important stage being the establishing specific emissions levels by performing monitoring studies of indoor air quality. In this context, the paper presents experimental studies focused on monitoring the concentrations of volatile organic compounds, inorganic compounds and particulate matter, from indoor air in residential spaces located in the urban area of Bucharest, Romania. The obtained results highlight the fact that in analysed spaces there are concentrations of pollutants whose values should be considered to improve the indoor air quality while addressing effectively the upgrade of energy performance in buildings

Optimizing Streaming Applications with Self-Interested Users using M-DPOP

In this paper we deal with the problem of optimally placing a set of query operators in an overlay network. Each user is interested in performing a query on streaming data and each query has an associated set of in-network operators that filter, aggregate and process the data in various ways. Each user has private information about the operators associated with a query and about the utility from different combinations of operator placements. Each server in the overlay network is able to perform some set of operators, and servers differ in their network and computational characteristics. We model this problem as a Distributed Constraint Optimization Problem (DCOP). On this DCOP model, we apply the MDPOP algorithm from Petcu et al. that is executed by clients associated with users and situated at nodes on the overlay network. MDPOP makes truth-telling an \textit{ex-post Nash equilibrium}, and determines the social-welfare maximizing placement of operators to servers. No client can benefit by deviating from the MDPOP algorithm. Nodes need only communicate with other nodes that have an interest in placing an operator on the same server. Structure can be exploited, where it exists, to provide a scalable algorithm. The only central authority required is a bank that can extract payments from users. In addition, it is possible to develop a faithful method to redistribute some of the VCG payments back to users when desired.Engineering and Applied Science

Nanostructured Biomaterials with Controlled Properties Synthesis and Characterization

Magnetic nanoparticles were obtained using an adjusted Massart method and were covered in a layer-by-layer technique with hydrogel-type biocompatible shells, from chitosan and hyaluronic acid. The synthesized nanocomposites were characterized using dynamic light scattering, transmission electron microscopy, and Fourier transformed infrared spectroscopy. Biocompatibility of magnetic nanostructures was determined by MTT (3-[4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl]-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide) cell proliferation assay, swelling tests, and degradation tests. In addition, interaction of hydrogel-magnetic nanoparticles with microorganisms was studied. The possibility of precise nanoparticles size control, as long as the availability of bio-compatible covering, makes them suitable for biomedical applications

Critical analysis of vendor lock-in and its impact on cloud computing migration: a business perspective

Vendor lock-in is a major barrier to the adoption of cloud computing, due to the lack of standardization. Current solutions and efforts tackling the vendor lock-in problem are predominantly technology-oriented. Limited studies exist to analyse and highlight the complexity of vendor lock-in problem in the cloud environment. Consequently, most customers are unaware of proprietary standards which inhibit interoperability and portability of applications when taking services from vendors. This paper provides a critical analysis of the vendor lock-in problem, from a business perspective. A survey based on qualitative and quantitative approaches conducted in this study has identified the main risk factors that give rise to lock-in situations. The analysis of our survey of 114 participants shows that, as computing resources migrate from on-premise to the cloud, the vendor lock-in problem is exacerbated. Furthermore, the findings exemplify the importance of interoperability, portability and standards in cloud computing. A number of strategies are proposed on how to avoid and mitigate lock-in risks when migrating to cloud computing. The strategies relate to contracts, selection of vendors that support standardised formats and protocols regarding standard data structures and APIs, developing awareness of commonalities and dependencies among cloud-based solutions. We strongly believe that the implementation of these strategies has a great potential to reduce the risks of vendor lock-in

The Cyclin-Dependent Kinase 5 Inhibitor Peptide Inhibits Herpes Simplex Virus Type 1 Replication

© 2019, The Author(s). In order to evaluate the influence of CDK5 inhibitory peptide (CIP) on Human alphaherpesvirus 1 (HSV-1) replication, we constructed two recombinant adeno-associated-virus 2 (rAAV2) vectors encoding CIP fused with cyan-fluorescent-protein (CFP), with or without nuclear localization signal. A third vector encoding non-fused CIP and CFP was also constructed. HeLa and HEK 293T cells were infected with the rAAV-CIP vectors at multiplicity of infection (MOI) of 5000, in the absence or presence of a recombinant HSV-1 that encodes a yellow-fluorescent-protein (rHSV48Y; MOI = 1). Cells co-infected with rHSV48Y and rAAV vectors that did not express the CIP gene (rAAV-CFP-Neo) served as controls. At 24 h after infection, the effect of CIP on rHSV48Y replication was assessed by PCR, qRT-PCR, Western-blot, flow-cytometry, epifluorescence and confocal microscopy. We show that in cultures co-infected with rAAV-CFP-Neo, 27% of the CFP-positive cells present rHSV48Y replication compartments. By contrast, in cultures co-infected with CIP-encoding rAAV2 vectors and rHSV48Y only 6–20% of the cells positive for CIP showed rHSV48Y replication compartments, depending on the CIP variant. Flow-cytometry showed that less than 40% of the rHSV48Y/rAAV-CIP, and more than 75% of rHSV48Y/rAAV-CFP-Neo co-infected cells were positive for both transgene products. The microscopy and flow-cytometry data support the hypothesis that CIP is inhibiting HSV-1 replication

Status of the ELIADE γ-ray spectrometer for NRF Experiments at ELI-NP

The ELIADE γ-ray spectrometer constructed at the Extreme Light Infrastructure Nuclear Physics (ELI-NP, Romania) is featured for Nuclear Reso- nance Fluorescent studies to be performed using a mono-energetical almost fully polarized γ-ray beam. This paper reports on the progress of implementation of ELIADE